As a child I was lucky enough to have lots of music and singing, both at school and at home.
At university in the 60s I met traditional folk music for the first time and fell in love with its richness, subtle melodies and harmonies and its connections with the land and the seasons. My husband Rob and I met then, playing in a folk group together. From student days onwards I made attempts at writing songs, but it wasn't until our first child was born that I composed anything I felt I could share with others and that first song was written for our son. I still sing it. I had a deep longing to create songs that could speak to us now but still somehow incorporate a little of the magic and lovely familiarity that is so special in traditional music. Though I couldn't have articulated it at the time, my brief was to create songs that spoke to the heart, but hiddenly, awakening a dormant part of ourselves to meaning and joy.
That brief became conscious in me later on when I heard and read about the medieval troubadours of France, who were the news carriers, protest singers and disseminators of unorthodox views of their times, and dangerous times they were indeed. Their art had to be subtle and multilayered to avoid political and religious censure. It was a question of 'he who has ears, let him hear'. That resonated so strongly with me. Leaving people free to hear or not is of the essence, so, for me, a song has to have more than one level.
I don't achieve that easily nor all the time by any means. When I was younger, songs and poems sometimes fell into my lap almost fully formed and that was very exciting, but now most of the time a lot of work has to go into fleshing out the original inspiration. The melodies also have branched out and taken on somewhat different styles, the French songs for instance having found their own distinctive flavour.
Fundamentally I have the sense that whatever we are told is happening 'out there', 'something else is going on!', (my very favourite expression), on deeper levels, that 'out there' doesn't know about. We can create a new reality, a reality constellated around the central axis of our being. In that place we 'know' the truth of our experience.
In my own small way I'd like my songs to foster that knowing, that trust in our own experience, and also the courage to explore further and deeper. To combine words from several of the lyrics:
'Don't let your heart stop at the surface.
When you recognize your power to transform everything,
you will know that you are the secret which the gods hold.'
and
'All the earth is listening
for your heart's song.'
(Emblem).
Use these links to reach two of Jehanne's CDs, newly featured by Cygnus: Emblem, Rose in Deep Water.
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Inspirational features 
